Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is a prequel film set in the world of Harry Potter, starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, and Alison Sudol. Fantastic Beasts features Newt Scamander (Redmayne), an introverted wizard who cares more about magical creatures than he does people. While on a trip to America, Scamander accidently stumbles upon a secret plan threatening to expose the hidden Wizarding World to regular, non-magical society. Scamander is forced to stop the plan along with Tina Goldstein (Waterston), her younger sister Queenie (Sudol), and non-wizard Jacob Kowalski (Fogler).

The best part of Fantastic Beasts is definitely it’s main characters. Eddie Redmayne does an excellent job of playing Newt Scamander, a wizard that’s out-of-touch in both normal society and the world of magic. Waterston is phenomenal as Tina Goldstein, an American witch who’s more down-to-Earth compared to Scamander’s eccentric ways. Dan Fogler’s Jacob Kowalski manages to be both hilarious and heartwarming. Kowalski also has a romance subplot with Tina’s younger sibling, Queenie Goldstein, whose performance by Alison Sudol was very subtle and not too cliche, so the romance isn’t terrible to watch.

Unfortunately, the villains of Fantastic Beasts weren’t as well thought out as the protagonists were. The main antagonist of the film feels less like an actual character and more like a setup for potential sequels. The only villain with any substance was Ezra Miller’s Credence, whose performance as an insecure, self-loathing type of villain was very convincing.

The plot line of Fantastic Beasts struggles as well, from bad pacing to the lack of a connecting theme. Throughout the film, there’s supposedly a theme of ignorance and perception of other people. Examples of this are Newt wanting to prove to the Wizarding World that the creatures he takes care of aren’t as bad as they seem, or Tina trying to prove herself as a worthy witch, or the main villain’s “wizard-supremacy” attitude. However, the film doesn’t have the pacing to make all three plot points feel balanced. It felt like the filmmakers decided to write about Newt’s and Tina’s stories first before realizing that they needed to have a villain for film franchise potential.

Overall, Fantastic Beasts is a well-made and mostly well-acted movie. It’s plot suffers from pacing and numerous unrelated subplots issue, as well as an underwhelming main villain. However, Fantastic Beasts is still a fine film despite it’s flaws. Fantastic Beasts is a 7/10.